


2 AM Wake Up Call

by Chelsea_E (CheyanneChika)



Series: Bits of Novel [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Nonfiction, Spiders, Teenage Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-06 01:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8730085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheyanneChika/pseuds/Chelsea_E
Summary: Let's go kill a spider in the middle of the night...in someone else's house.  Based on true events.





	

Cassie was glad she couldn’t see the alarm clock on the dresser when My Darkest Days’ song, “Porn-Star Dancing”, started blasting six inches from her face.  If she had, she’d’ve thrown it out the open window.  Instead, her blue eyes snapped open in the muted glow of her phone and she shut them again.  The music played through the chorus before she groped for the phone without opening her eyes again and pressed send.

“What?” she growled before the phone even reached her ear. 

Belle’s voice issued from the other end.  Cassie had known it would be her but the high-pitched whispery gasp of “Cassie!” was not what she’d expected.  She sat up.

“Belle?  What’s wrong?”

“You gotta help me!”

Cassie rubbed her eyes and reached for her contacts on the table next to her laptop, which she woke up with a keystroke.  “Tell me what’s going on?”

“I...I need you—there’s a—I need you to come!”  Her voice got higher and louder.  Cassie jammed the phone between her cheek and shoulder before unscrewing the lid on her left contact case.  She popped it in easily and fumbled with the other one.  It slipped and she had to catch it before inserting it into her right eye.

“Where are you?” Cassie asked.

“At home.  Please come!”  Belle squeaked and started to whimper.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Cassie countered.  “Did someone break in?  Are you hurt?”

“No,” she replied.

“No to what?”  Cassie threw off her blanket and clambered out her wobbly, new bed.  She flipped open the phone to activate its speaker and set it on the pillow before reaching into the hamper and pulling out the black skirt she’d taken off before going to bed.  She looked down at the shirt.  It had a built in bra so she didn’t need to worry about that.  She pulled on the skirt and its hem brushed against her pale knees. 

“Both, I’m alright and no one broke in.”  Belle was whimpering softly.  It came out in screechy chords over the connection.  Cassie winced and started looking for a pair of socks.

Cassie sighed and said firmly, “Then tell me what you need at—“ She consulted the alarm clock. “—two thirty-seven in the morning?”

“There’s,” she said in a very melodramatic voice, “a spider!”

Cassie stood silently for so long that the digital clock changed to two thirty-eight.  Then she shucked her skirt and flopped back into bed.  Belle heard the shuffling and yelled, “Come on, Cass.  It’s huge.”

“I’m going to bed, Belle,” Cassie replied flatly.  She tugged her blanket back over her legs and turned to look at her computer as it dimmed into screensaver mode.  Belle whined emphatically and it grated on Cassie’s ears.  She snapped the phone shut and brought it to her ear.  ‘I’m not coming over there to kill your spider.”

“It’s not—eek!—my spider.  Please, Cass, it’s moving!”

“No.  Get Tony or Mike to do it,” Cassie replied, naming her brother and step-father.

“They’re asleep.”

Cassie waited for her friend, her blonde friend, to absorb the stupidity of that statement.  When Belle didn’t, Cassie snapped, “So. Was. I.”

Belle paused for a moment then said, “I’m sorry, okay?  Just come and kill it.  I can’t sleep ‘til it’s dead.”  She yelped suddenly and it was followed by a loud bark.  That was followed by the squalling of Belle’s baby sister and then muffled swearing in a masculine tone.

“Sounds like he’s awake now,” Cassie murmured.  She yawned and put the phone back on speaker before setting it aside and waking up the computer once more.  She dimmed the screen enough so it wouldn’t blind her and started up a game of Solitaire. 

Belle set her phone aside on speaker as well and went to her door.  Cassie could tell because she could hear her speak.  “Mike?  Can you come kill a spider?”  She’d managed to control the hysteria nicely.  Cassie, lying on her belly to play the game, bent her knees and twitched them back and forth like this was a typical call.

“No,” was the clear response.

“But Mike—“

“Kill your own damn spider.  I’m busy.”

 Cassie heard the door shut and then Belle’s voice, close to the phone, came back.  “Please, Cassie?  Mike won’t kill it.”

“Why not?”

“He’s dealing with Tina.  Cass, I’ll owe you for, like, ever,” she wheedled.

Cassie pinched the bridge of her nose.  Then she got up and reached for her skirt once more.  “Fine.  I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank—“ Cassie ended the call by snapping the phone shut and hitting end.  Then she crossed to her door and flicked on a light.  She spent the next five minutes fumbling with clothes and swearing in four separate languages.

The problem with her bedroom was its alarm system.  Cassie had hung beads when her sister’s penchant for kleptomania became too much to ignore.  The problem was that they were a bitch to get out of when she was trying to be quiet.  She parted the blue and green cascade of beads very slowly with only one hand.  Once she was through, she lowered them back into place.

Next came the creaky steps and the squeaky storm door.  And then she was out on the street.  She stuffed her hands into her pockets in the crisp air.  In one was her iPod, which she unwound her earbuds from and jammed into both ears, and in the other was the knife she carried for protection and her cell phone.

She set off down her street, up the next and onto the sidewalk path that split the tree line between her subdivision and the elementary school parking lot.  The lot was very dark, lit only by two streetlamps and a couple of lights from the school entrance.  Cassie crossed the lot quickly, disliking being in the open.  She’d almost reached the other side and Belle’s subdivision when a car started down the road between them.

Cassie took two steps back and turned, searching for a shadow.  She settled on a tree and leaned against it.  The car turned into Belle’s neighborhood and started north without slowing.  Once it was gone, she stepped out and hurried on.  She stalked down to the street and up to the small hill to her street.  Cassie turned left, walked down two houses and stalked up the driveway, getting more and more agitated as she approached the porch.  Boots grinding against leaves and cement, she pulled out her cell phone and called Belle.

“You here yet?” she asked breathlessly.

“Yes.  Now let me in.”  It was barely a moment before the heavy door was thrown open and she stood in a tank top and pajama bottoms, holding her dog by the collar.  Her green eyes were rimmed red with stress and tears.  Cassie’s matched a bit, though it was from lack of sleep and scrubbing because her contacts weren’t fully cleaned yet.

Cassie stepped in, patted the dog and shut the door.  She removed her boots, popped one earbud out and picked up the left boot.  “Where’s your spider?” she asked pointedly.

“My room.  On the ceiling.”  Belle stepped aside and allowed her best friend, the only person who would actually go to these lengths for her, to stomp up the stairs to her room.  She bypassed Tony’s room and the bathroom to Belle’s door.  It was shut but light glowed in the crack at the bottom.  Cassie opened the door as Belle reached the landing and stepped inside.  Belle followed but didn’t leave the doorway.  Their eyes darted to the ceiling.

“Where is it?” Cassie asked.

Belle’s eyes lit on the spot where she’d last seen the great, hairy spider.  It had, of course, moved.  “Oh crap,” she murmured.  Her eyes darted furiously and she started to back out of the room as goose bumps raced up her arms and the back of her neck.

“Oh no you don’t.”  Cassie reached back and gripped Belle’s arm with her free hand.  “If I have to do this, you have to stay here.”

“But it’s gone,” Belle whined, trying to tub away. 

Cassie released her and said flippantly, “Then I guess you don’t need me, I’ll just go.”  She started to move around Belle, bodily shuffling her to the side. 

“No!” Belle wailed.  She cut it off on a high squeak.  They both listened for Baby Tina to wake up but she didn’t.  They both breathed a sigh of relief and Cassie elbowed Belle in the stomach.  “Dumbass,” she murmured.

Belle took a deep breath and stepped back into the room, her eyes scanning the ceiling once more.  “There!” she hissed.

“Where?”

Belle pointed to a spot above the foot of her king-size bed.  Cassie squinted and moaned softly.  The spider couldn’t have been more than half a centimeter, including the legs.  Cassie’s head started to throb the way it had that afternoon once she’d sobered up.  She rubbed her temples and climbed up to stand on Belle’s pink comforter.  The bed wobbled dangerously as she fought for balance.  Belle backed into the doorway again and watched, biting her lip.  Cassie was positive that if the spider scuttled its ass out of the way of her boot, Belle would be out the door, down the stairs and in the backyard before she could take aim again.

But she didn’t miss.  Her boot connected with the ceiling with a soft thud.  She twitched the sole a bit for good measure and pulled it away.  All that was left was a dark spot.  Cassie sat and slid off the bed, rather than bounce off and wake everybody up again.  Then she pulled on the boot and zipped it up to her knee.  “Can I go now?”

Belle nodded.  “Thank you.”

Cassie shook her said.  “You are so not welcome.”  Then she smiled and Belle smiled back.  “See you in the morning,” Cassie added.

“Night.”  Belle and Cass went back downstairs and put on her other boot.  She stepped outside and waved before heading back to the driveway.  Belle’s door closed with a thunk.


End file.
